John Muirhead

The author recalls his dangerous missions as a B-17 Flying Fortress bomber pilot during the Second World War and chronicles his prisoner-of-war experiences after his plane was shot down over Bulgaria.
A WW II bomber pilot who was taken prisoner in Bulgaria recalls recalls his fighting days with vividness, honesty and a touch of poetry. Muirhead's first book. It tells of his experiences flying B-17 bombers out of an American base near Foggia, in the southern Italian province of Apulia, into enemy-held territory in Yugoslavia, and of the men who shared his alternating spells of terror and boredom as he waited to fulfill the 50 missions that would have sent him home.… (más)

It is a very good story of a bomber pilot in WWII. You get to feel the anxiety of going on a mission, especially when nearing the end of your flight quota, the isolation and desire not to know fellow pilots so that the grief is less when they are killed. The calm during the actual action, wanting only to do their job, drop their bombs and complete the mission safely. The boredom of living in a prison camp.

To me it was a bit sanitized as far as the life in the camp was concerned. There were no escape attempts, other than a bad diet and health care there was no real brutality even when first captured. I have a diary of my uncle when he was captured after Dieppe. He was angry at his officers (who lived in separate barracks) as well as his fellow prisoners. He just wanted to do his time as best as possible but there was always one in his barracks that created a problem for the Germans and their response was to punish the whole barrack for the actions of one man.

The book drags a bit in the middle with many many bombing runs with little significant occurrences to the major character in the story.

But that aside, it is a pretty good read on a topic that is not written about very often.… (más)